Two-hour rape and torture of honour killing girl murdered by her family (ROP Alert)

Two-hour rape and torture of honour killing girl murdered by her family

Horrific details have been revealed of the last hours of the young Kurdish woman murdered by her family for falling in love with the wrong man.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was brutally raped and stamped on during a two-hour ordeal before being garotted.

One of her killers, the Old Bailey was told, was 30-year-old Mohamad Hama, who had been recruited by Banaz's father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari, 51.

Both were found guilty of murder last month.

The shocking details of the killing came to light when Hama was secretly recorded talking to a friend in prison.

He admitted "slapping" and "f***ing" Banaz, who was subjected to degrading sex acts.

Hama and his friend were heard laughing as he described how she was killed in her family home in Mitcham, South London, with Ari Mahmod "supervising".

The murderers - two other suspects have fled to Iraq - had been told Banaz would be on her own.

Hama is recorded as saying: "Ari (the uncle) said there is no one there. There was someone there, Biza (her sister). The bastard lied to us."

He said of the murder: "I swear to God it took him more than two hours. Her soul and her life would not leave."

Banaz was garotted for five minutes, said Hama, but it took another half an hour for her to die.

Hama said: "The wire was thick and the soul would not just leave like that.

"We could not remove it. All in all it took five minutes (to strangle) her.

"I was kicking and stamping on her neck to get the soul out. I saw her stark naked, without wearing pants or underwear."

Banaz's body was packed into a suitcase and buried in a garden in Birmingham, where it was found three months later.

The trial of the two brothers heard that Banaz was killed because she had walked out of an unhappy arranged marriage - which she was forced into at just 17 - and fallen in love with Iranian Kurd Rahmat Suleimani, 28.

The pair had been secretly seeing each other, but her family were furious when they found out because Mr Suleimani was not "immediate family" or a strict Muslim.

Terrified, Banaz wrote to police naming people she said were planning to kill her.

Hama was on the list, the court heard. Two other men named by Banaz have fled the country.

Transcripts of the prison recording were read out at a pre- sentence hearing for Hama, of South Norwood, South London, who pleaded guilty to murdering Banaz at an earlier hearing.

Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, sat to assess the extent of Hama's involvement.

He and the Mahmod brothers are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

Victor Temple QC, prosecuting, told the court that Hama, who sat impassively in the dock, took a "leading part" in raping and killing Banaz in January last year then dumping her body.

He was said to have been recorded expressing concern because his fingerprints and DNA were on her body.

He was also concerned that a leaking pipe at the house where she was buried was sending water through the suitcase, possibly uncovering it.

During another taped conversation, Hama joked about Banaz's hair and elbow sticking out of the suitcase and how a police patrol drove past while he was helping to drag it to a car.

He said: "The road was crowded. The police came past. People were passing by - and we were dragging the bag.

"I almost ran away. Mr Ari (was dragging it) and we were around by each side of him.

"You know what it was, sticking out, her elbow, her hair was falling out so much. That was a stupid thing, a silly thing."